The school morning juggle

Firstly I woke up late then T decides to remind me, at 8am that he needs trackie bottoms for a PE trip today! ~argh~
After a quick saviour phone call to grandma to see if she had some I managed to get all the breakfast ready and E dressed for school.
I left P to his own devices thinking he would manage to get himself ready.~This was my second mistake~
I walked in to find him with wellies on and his jumper backwards.
This is a common sight in my house.
No matter how much I try to teach P to dress himself he always want to have his own “style” but unfortunately the school don’t agree with his style. I regularly get comments about how he is dressed inappropriately or how his shoes are on wrong feet and jumper on backwards etc.

After telling him numerous times to sort out his jumper and change his shoes. P begrudgingly did as I asked.
By this point T had worked himself into a right state over his trackie bottoms.(grandma was still searching her house for them)
I had then asked him to get dress and wait to see what happens. (if all else failed I was going to send him with some PJ bottoms that looked like jogging pants

As his temper and melt down hit fever pitch, he stormed into living room to start getting his uniform on but then started shouting at his siblings because they were in the living room “watching” him get dressed.
He got really upset, when I tried to explain that he could easily go get changed in one of the 4 empty rooms upstairs.

That wasn’t good enough though. He stamped up the stairs grumbling and muttering under his breath (probably cursing me)
Luckily the time away gave him chance to calm down and eventually realise we weren’t try to be mean to him and he was being unreasonable.

Just then grandma arrived at the house carrying some Nike jogging bottom that were a size too big. That didn’t matter though because we managed to adjust them and make it all work.

I was so glad once he had calmed down and his anger defused because we were able to get out the door and to school on time without anymore meltdowns.

It was on the way to school I noticed P had sneaked his body warmer out with him instead of his coat. But we were already half way to school and even though I knew school wouldn’t approved we would be late if we went back and I forced him to change into something more “school acceptable” so I decided to just let it go and not have another argument.

Also it was E’s first full morning at nursery. She had done a few warm up sessions at the end of last week but today was her first time there for longer then an hour. (I think I was more nervous then her)
We walked in and she was great at first. She trundled off to sand pit as I hung up her things and talked to her teacher about who would be collecting her.

It was when I tried to say goodbye that she clung to my leg asking me to stay. (she wanted me to play in sand with her)
I explained I was just going home for some breakfast (I hadn’t managed to eat yet due to melt down) and a coffee then I I would be back to pick her up.

She was having none of it at first and really didn’t want me to leave. I could feel myself wavering just as her teacher came back again and started to talk to her about painting, snack time and of course Frozen! Soon as she mentioned Elsa. E let go of my leg and waved goodbye. I was shocked but decides to make a hasty exit in case she changed her mind. (I would call in an hour to see how she was doing)

You can not imagine the amazing feeling I felt as the stress melted away on the walk home.
I was able to breath a sigh of relief because I had managed to defuse a meltdown, get all kids up, fed and almost completely dressed suitably for school. While keeping E settled and excited for school.

This post and reference to trackie bottoms reminds me about my morning yesterday.They had PE for the first time and I only remembered as we were leaving. Luckily I found stuff but it did make us late. You write so well I felt as if I observed your morning. That’s how blogging should be if only I could write like that xxx

Hi there! My mornings are difficult enough and I only have one child! Fair play for being able to get out the door, is all I can say – even if it means a backwards jumper! I sometimes feel like nurseries/schools don’t appreciate what we go through in the mornings, thbrnblt h mc at we don’t pay attention to such details – and getting there is the aim! (Being on time is a bonus). Here’s my hectic morning tale, just about getting my baby ready for nursery so that i can get to uni on time – nightmsre! http://lipstickandlittleonesies.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/morning-mayhem.html?m=1